"If she does take it ill of you." "What bearing have her feelings, pray?" Fleda asked.!

"What I mean to say is, if she's angry at your backing me up—what will you do then? She can't possibly like it, you know." "If we have lost?" Fleda repeated as she paused again.

Fleda, meanwhile, had had time to make her reflections, which were moreover the continued throb of those that had occupied the interval between Owen's departure and his mother's return. If she should now repeat his words, this wouldn't at all play the game of her definite vow; it would only play the game of her little gagged and blinded desire. She could calculate well enough the effect of telling Mrs. Gereth how she had had it from Owen's troubled lips that Mona was only waiting for the restitution and would do nothing without it. The thing was to obtain the restitution without imparting that knowledge. The only way, also, not to impart it was not to tell any truth at all about it; and the only way to meet this last condition was to reply to her companion, as she presently did: "He told me nothing whatever: he didn't touch on the subject." "Is that what you came to ask me?" Fleda demanded. "You pegged at her so hard?" Owen asked.